Representing an external stairs in steel and glass with a BIM software

Representing an external stairs in steel and glass with a BIM software

How to represent an external stairs in steel and glass with a BIM software: here is the Edificius step by step process inspired by Nahil Kan’s project

In the architecture sector, stairs serve as a sort of business card being both an aestethic and a structural element necessary for access to the upper floors.

Beginning with the most original stairs with cantilevered steps that allow a panoramic view of the understairs, to the most traditional types, external stairs have a fundamental function either when placed at the entrance of a residential or commercial building or when making people accessing lower levels, including small kitchenettes, courtyards and secondary entrances.

In modern planning the objective functionality aligns with an accurate stylistic research, following the outdoor design type that takes in consideration not only the resistance of the basic structure so to guarantee safety, but also the harmony of its components, like materials and shapes, according to the structure of the building.

Let’s see in details how to reproduce a steel stairs with glass panels protections on the model of Nahil Kan with the aid of Edificius, the architectural BIM design software.

Nahil Kan: the stairs project

Nahil Kan is a project by the Argentinian architect Hugo Mur. It displays a complex made of 4 factory sections with residential purposes and a frontal section with commercial usage. The complex building presents a central simmetric axis.

The stairs path surrounding an elevator made of glass and steel connects the four floors.

Nahil Kan external view

The steel stairs structure placed along the central simmetric axis allowing access to the several building floors.

Highlighted stairs objects on Nahil Kan planning

The structure of the steel stairs, made of three ramps and two platforms, is protected by glass panels that offer a panoramic view on the external landscape.
Inteconnecting walkaways are present on each floor allowing the access to the several blocks of the building.

Stairs representation

The stairs path surrounding an elevator made of glass and steel connects the four floors.

Elevator-Nahil Kan

Staircase planning representation with Edificius

Let’s see how to reproduce a staircase made of steel and protected by glass panels with the Edificius software. Opening the Edificius program, as a first step, we can edit the continous facade object within the project catalogue, an element which will be needed as a glass casing to wrap up the steel stairs.

Let’s set the different dimensions to assign to the frame such as length, height and width.

Once completed the construction of the continous facade, let’s close the editor tool and insert it in the grid. Thanks to the aid of the guide lines we can retrieve the snapping points where to insert it.

Glass case inserting Nahil Kan stairs

After completing the glass facade addition, let’s open the stairs editor tool.

As a next step you can proceed to insert the first ramp of stairs made of 6 risers, the second one made of 8 risers and the last ramp made of 6 risers as well.

Afterwards you can continue by inserting the steel pillars.

Steel pillars inserting step

In order to speed up the entire process, it is possible to duplicate the elements of the continous facade, the staircase and the pillars on all the levels that you wish, with the copy function.

At the end of the process, you can create the tower coverage of the steel stairs with the aid of the roof editor.

Below a summarizing video of the staircase remodelling with the Edificius BIM software.